Chapter 52 (2/2)
”You don't level up automatically, but G.o.ds determine it for you. You've been to the Chamber of Awakening back in the Neutral Zone, yes? You should go and visit a temple as soon as this expedition is…. Mm?” (Ian)
When the march was abruptly halted, Ian stopped talking and took a look.
Seol Ji-Hu surveyed his surroundings and his jaw fell to the floor as soon as he saw incredibly tall trees standing here and there. He briefly wondered whether they had arrived at the Forest of Denial already, but it seemed that wasn't the case.
Samuel was on his knee, busy staring straight at the ground.
”Samuel? Is something the matter?” (Dylan)
Dylan's uniquely dignified voice came from the back. Samuel raised his hand to signal that he needed a bit more time, before he smoothly got up with a smirk on his face.
”How interesting. We've got ourselves Cave Ettins.” (Samuel)
”Cave Ettins? But, aren't they supposedly cave dwellers? What are they doing here?” (Dylan)
”Maybe, out to forage for food?” (Samuel)
Samuel shrugged his shoulders and looked to his left.
”They divided into two groups five minutes before we arrived here. Thirty of them are waiting for us up ahead, while ten of them are to my left, waiting.” (Samuel)
”Oh, so they see us as food, is that it? If we continue on down this path, we'd get definitely surrounded, then.” (Dylan)
”Well, they do possess a crazy sense of smell, after all. So, what do you want us to do?” (Samuel)
Dylan fell into a deep thought after Samuel asked the big man.
”Since each of them has two heads, taking them by surprise isn't going to work, no?” (Dylan)
”Most likely, yeah. One of the heads is always used as the lookout, after all.” (Samuel)
”That doesn't mean we can't hit them first, though. I'll ask Hugo to accompany you, so go and cut loose for a while.” (Dylan)
”Okay.” (Samuel)
Samuel replied confidently and resumed the march.
”Seol? Now that's the real Archer, man. Now do you understand why I went batsh*t crazy back then, right?” (Hugo)
Seol Ji-Hu ended up agreeing with Hugo as the big guy whispered to him. To be able to figure out what happened five minutes ago simply by staring at the ground for a few seconds, now that sounded like a pure lie, actually.
But, Seol Ji-Hu had to acknowledge it as real when a group of Cave Ettins broke out from the cover and rushed at them while roaring out loudly less than two minutes later. There were exactly 30 of them to boot.
Each Cave Ettin was slightly shorter than an average human male, but it still looked rather threatening from all those hardy muscles on its arms. More importantly, though, it possessed two wrinkly heads on a single neck and it looked properly bizarre, to say the least.
”They are nothing much to fret about.” (Cho Hong)
Just as Seol Ji-Hu grasped his spear, Cho Hong lightly patted him on the shoulder.
”You just wait here and watch. They'll be taken care of soon.” (Cho Hong)
She pointed to the front.
Samuel was jumping into the middle of the Cave Ettin pack without hesitation.
Actually, that was incorrect.
”Hey! Hey! Over here!” (Samuel)
It looked as if that was his original intention, but then, he bounced up like a flying tiger as soon as his feet touched the ground and landed swiftly on a tree's branch up above. He crossed his hands and reached into his inner pockets.
”Eat this!” (Samuel)
The moment he extended his hands out, the Cave Ettins, now looking more like dogs that failed to catch the chicken, fell down to the ground in great agony.
Swis.h.!.+ Swis.h.!.+
Sharp noises split the air apart. Only after spotting small throwing daggers buried deep in the shoulder of a Cave Ettin did Seol Ji-Hu realise what Samuel had been throwing just now.
”Yea~ho!” (Samuel)
When three, four of them also resorted to throwing their weapons at him, Samuel suddenly transformed into Tarzan and leapt away to land on the tree in front. Ian showed his admiration as Samuel continued to pepper the Cave Ettins below with the throwing daggers.
”Very admirable. He made sure that all thirty are focused only on him.” (Ian)
The older man spoke those words after he saw Hugo and Grace rush out to seize this opportunity they had been waiting for.
Hugo pounced like a panther and swung his battle axe in a surprise attack at the backs of the Cave Ettins, who were currently preoccupied by Samuel's antics from up above. Three pairs of heads separated from the bodies of three creatures. The monsters hastily turned around to look behind, but all they could see now was a huge, bloodied axe closing in rapidly to crack their skulls.
The group of monsters were already confused on what to do next, yet when the level 4 Barbarian Warrior arrived in their midst and proceeded to ruthlessly step on them, they fell even deeper in confusion.
Every now and then, one or two tried to attack from the side. However, Grace stuck very close to Hugo's blindspot and protected him with her s.h.i.+eld or lent a timely support with her sword, making it impossible to get close to the duo.
Eventually, even Samuel had climbed down from the tree and along with Klara, they began firing arrows from the front and back. The group of Cave Ettins got fragmented in an instant. It happened then.
”Here they come.” (Dylan)
Dylan spoke with a calm voice and pulled his bowstring back as he aimed towards the rear of the formation, towards ten Cave Ettins rus.h.i.+ng in. They were hastily rus.h.i.+ng over here after their main force was getting annihilated in the proverbial blink of an eye.
”How many are you going to leave me with?” (Cho Hong)
”You should ask them that.” (Dylan)
*SFX for an arrow being fired, except it sounding like a cannon being fired, instead*
Dylan's shoulders quivered slightly as he let go of the string. And then, a loud explosion similar to a gun being fired could be heard. Seol Ji-Hu felt his eardrums become numb from the shockwave and hurriedly covered his ears, and then….
Kaboom!! Boom!! Kaboom!!
….And then, he became utterly flabbergasted by the sight of the ground exploding several times as if landmines were going off in succession where the arrows had landed.
Cave Ettins had been mindlessly rus.h.i.+ng forward, so when that happened, they all flew in the air, their arms flailing about quite helplessly, before cras.h.i.+ng head first to the solid ground. They began convulsing as the shower of debris and earth covered them up.
”Uh-whew~. Cleaning up afterwards isn't my style, though.” (Cho Hong)
”I leave them to you, Cho Hong.” (Dylan)
”Yes, yes. Sure thing.” (Cho Hong)
While looking somewhat wistful, Cho Hong made her move while dragging the mace along.
‘This is the Arch Shooter from the upper levels….' (Seol Ji-Hu)
It wasn't as if they were twisting the arms of unruly children, yet the supposed battle ended in such an anti-climatic fas.h.i.+on.
Of course, this wasn't a bad thing. Easily beating back the enemy would result in far less casualties than when fighting tooth and nail to barely grasp the victory, after all.
Indeed, Seol Ji-Hu knew this, yet….
”So? How was it?” (Ian)
”Y, yes? Pardon?” (Seol Ji-Hu)
Seol Ji-Hu had been dazedly looking at Cho Hong checking and killing any survivors until then; he flinched a little and hurriedly looked to his side. Ian was there with a bright smile on his face.
”Your first impression, having witnessed the battle of an expedition team.” (Ian)
Seol Ji-Hu closed his mouth. He didn't need to be reminded of it to fully appreciate the reality with his entire being.
The impression left behind by the strength displayed by the individual combatants ran deep, of course, but…. But, the things that etched most deeply in his memory were the way they all matched each other's timing as if they had made a prior arrangement, as well as how they controlled the direction of the battle and made it go the way they wanted it to.
”This isn't their first time cooperating together. They've been through a lot together, and that's why they can trust each other wholeheartedly.” (Ian)
Seol Ji-Hu nodded his head and closed his eyes. Faces of several people he knew fleeted in and out of his head just then.
‘Someday, I'll….' (Seol Ji-Hu)
Someday, he'd form his own expedition team.
For the first time ever since his arrival in the Lost Paradise, such a thought entered his mind.
As soon as the battle ended, the expedition team collected their spoils of war. Well, they were nothing more than weapons and equipment the dead Cave Ettins had dropped, but every one of them was worth something. Also, since these creatures used stuff taken from their human victims, sometimes it was possible for a pretty good windfall to show up, too.
”Seol! Seol! Look! Here's another one!” (Hugo)
Seol Ji-Hu had been wordlessly stuffing his bag with items Cho Hong brought to him, and when he spotted Hugo walking over with his arms full of loot, the youth opened the mouth of the bag wider. Samuel was quietly observing from the side, before lightly clicking his tongue.
The bag was imbued with magic that increased the storage s.p.a.ce as well as reducing the overall weight, so it could swallow up a lot of stuff, but there would still be a physical limit of sorts. It was already packed full of provisions, tent equipment as well as sleeping bags, so when weapons were placed in there, the bag should end up weighing a ton.
He had no complaints whatsoever about Seol Ji-Hu who continued to accept more stuff without raising a fuss, but the real problem Samuel had was with the two local porters who only studied the mood and never once tried to carry anything until now.
‘This is why the original residents are….' (Samuel)
As the leader of this expedition, Samuel simply couldn't overlook this transgression. Just as he was about to go over there and speak his mind, he ended up faltering in his steps after seeing Seol Ji-Hu sling the bag over his shoulder and lightly stand back up.
”H, hey, fella.” (Samuel)
”Are you alright? It looks really heavy.” (Samuel)
”Well, I'm fine, so far.” (Seol Ji-Hu)
The youth even lightly jumped up and down on the spot. The look of suspicion crept up on Samuel's expression right away.
”….I know that I've asked you this question before, but well, are you really a level 1?” (Samuel)
”See? I told you, it's not only me.” (Alex)
Alex began chuckling out loudly as if he had predicted this a long time ago.
”In any case. We'll be climbing up the Napal's hill pretty soon. It's not too late, so how about splitting some of your luggage, and hand them over to the others?” (Samuel)
”Oh, I'll be fine. I won't negatively affect the pace of the team.” (Seol Ji-Hu)
”If you say so. Okay.” (Samuel)
What could Samuel do here, since the man himself said it was fine? Samuel turned around and met the gazes of the two local porters. He was telling them that they were on a short notice.
And so, the march forward resumed. The bag became heavier now, and that placed greater burden on his shoulders, but Seol Ji-Hu actually preferred this.
‘I get to train as well, so it's fine.'
Compared to back when he got repeatedly beaten up by Agnes all in the name of increasing his overall endurance, this much was nothing, really.
Soon, the expedition began climbing up a hill, just as Samuel predicted earlier.
The Forest of Denial was upon them.
< 52.=”” forest=”” of=”” denial=”” (2)=””> Fin.